Independence Day Going Down in Flames

Most of us are introduced to the concept of Love when we are born and are fed and played with and shown affection. I don’t understand how this love that we are introduced to in the beginning slowly forms and flows through our veins. We hang onto this concept of love because if we don’t we die.

It’s extreme but if you seriously sit down and think about it you will soon realize that a life without love slowly and surely dies. And not only would you die but the culture that we live in would die as well. We are in a culture of wanting to be independent yet we yearn for a love that NO ONE can deny. This idea of independence that we hear from our parents, from our schools and from our relationships, only leads to one thing...death.

You cannot be independent. The reality simply does not exist. Here’s why. You depend on a job to provide you money in which you depend on your boss to give you hours to work. You depend on the sheet that says you have hours and you depend on getting paid every other Friday. You rent a house/apartment. People are depending on you to pay the rent. Any simple transaction is a cause of dependence. You are depending on a good or service to be delivered and they are depending on you for the money of the delivery or service.

Every person in the world is depending on something or someone. If you decide to go out in the wilderness and not commune with one person you still depend on the soil for your fruit. You depend on the wild game around you to provide you the sustenance that you need.

You have no independence in this world whatsoever.

You are incapable of making a small decision by yourself. Let’s say you are going to college. You are influenced by your parents, by your peers, by your belief system. Your background and your moral standing have decided things for you. If you take the argument of not having a moral standing you now depend on the idea that you have no moral standing and that makes your decisions for you.

You have no independence in your thinking.

North America has created an illusion. They have told you that you can make your own decisions. They have lied to you and allowed you to buy into a product. Individualism is a product that America sells quite well. "You don’t need anyone", "Just do it",
The drive to attain independence through a constant self-centered striving is obscenely ironic. As we strive-as we climb that cliched, metaphorical ladder, we rely on the rungs to propel us forward.

Step one, we are reliant on air to fill our lungs and gravity to hold us down.

Step two, we rely on food to grow and the store to sell that food and the government to keep making money so we can buy the food.

Step three, we rely on our parents or someone to care for us and teach us how the world works.

Step four we rely on someone to give us a chance in the world
that we are so apt to become independent from.

Step five we depend on our environments to create where we will go next and what steps we need to take to achieve our ultimate goals.

Step six we find someone or something to take care of our emotional and physical needs and we become inherently attached to him/her or it.

Step seven we work until we are ready or until someone else thinks we are ready to retire and we depend on our pension to provide for us until we die.

Step eight our environment finally destroys our physical being and we reach the end of deteriation.

Step nine we depend on our children, close relatives, close friends, or co-workers to bury us and to honor the short and mundane lives we have lived. Whether it be a slow and corrosive disease, a night time escape, or a tragic ending we all die. All the things we work for are remembered for a while and then they die along with our name.

So what is the answer, and why is love the ribbon that ties everything together?

"Revolution"

"We are throwing rocks at the bride of Crist and calling it a Revolution" B. Mills

This statement seems to continually reign true in my life as I look at what is happening to the church in North America. I have encountered so many books on this spiritual journey from authors that span from Brian McClaren to Donald Miller to Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne(sorry Kel). While these authors have good things to say I think that they are missing something.

We apparantly are having a revolution in our church in North America. Something is shifting and we think that if we start something brand new than the world will look at Christians in a different way. "They will finally see Christ!"

We tend to think that relationships are the key. If we just show them Christ and have dialouge with them then they will eventually find God. Here me know. The tolerance that we are showing is not acceptable. We are allowing sin into the church in America and it is unaccebtable.

Why are we so afraid to be different? God has called us to be different yet it seems like this is an outlandish thing. If we are different they will know we follow Jesus. SO WHAT?

Why are we throwing around the significance and holiness of God to have such 'experiences.' In the book of Leviticus God's holiness is taken seriously. Sin is taken seriously.

Sin has no power on us! Why are we so ashamed to live free in Christ and proclaim his name wherever we go?

Has this "revolution" taken over the importance of the church? Have we walked away from the problems of the church because it's easier to start something new, rather than trusing God to redeem the problem itself.

Have we lost the Doctrine? Are our opinions replacing the Doctrine of the church?

Have we blurred the "line" between the world and God that we have forgotten who we are?

Have we thrown mud at Christ's bride to feed our own satisfaction?

Have we become cowards in terms of proclaiming the Gospel?

Are we ashame to be called JEsus FrEaks, because that causes people to suggest that we actually follow Jesus and read the Bible?

Are we reading the Bible?

Why are churches using the term Christian no more? Can another name change the world sees us?

Isn't the Gospel supposed to offensive? If it's not than I'm not really living for anything "revolutionary"

I am not at all saying that I am not part of this myself, but I am trying to figure these things out.

Dance

You know the way the dance makes you feel.

The first couple of steps are nervous and akward, but then the movement comes ever so slowly. The music seems to seep through your viens as you move back and forth with your masked partner.

As you once moved on your own, you now move together in a state of utter transcendance. It feels like you were born to be in this state of mind. As the music gets faster the movement gets faster, and the dancing becomes a fantastic blur to the audience in which the dance is being performed for.

But, it is much for than a performance for the dancers. It is breath. In and out. Every step that slides across the floor the breathing gets easier and more melodic. The heart beats to a steady and firm idea, pumping and tracing the music throughout the essence of the dancers.

You know the way that the dance makes you feel.

When the embarrassment of the dance has passed, the faces seem to interact in an intimate way. They seem to lock eyes as they dance across and around the room. They never look down to see if they are in step because it no longer matters.

The dance transforms the two and they walk away from it very differently. The music seems to end and breathing only comes easier when the dance has resumed. Regular life seems asthmatic, and mundane.

The dance is never easy, and is never safe, but it's always good.

Awe

To be in Awe of God, is to have God literally scare the Hell out of you.

Lights

Ever see things and are brought back to a memory from your childhood in a flash.

It happened tonight when I went to Bloomington to see a movie. We were heading back from Bloomington and I started counting the street lights.

I was ten again and coming home from my Grandma's. I was lying on my back in the back seat of our white mini-van. My head was on the plastic siding and had started aching and the forty-five to fifty minute drive seemed like forever at nine at night, especially after a large meal.

My parents didn't like to listen to music, probably because they thought we would fall asleep, I never did. The rumbling of the car and the yellow lines on the road seemed to flow into one as i lied in the back. I pressed my face on the window because the heat in the car was overbearing.

And I started counting the street lights. 1,2,3,4.....34,35,36.....67,68,69.....

They seemed to never end, and we were moving at a speed where it was a competition to see if I could count every single one that I could see. If I lost count I had to start over.

Then another memory came flashing back and I remember the first time I saw Chicago at night on an airplane. Which in all reality isn't as spectacular as it might sound but I will never forget it. Those lights that seemed to never end. I tried to count them but it was nearly impossible.

The flight attendent came over the intercome and stated that we were ten miles out of our destination and we would be coming into the city limits very shortly. I remember first seeing the lights as the clouds seemed to part. Suddenly there was a massive amount of small lights that were only about a centimeter apart, and as we slowly descended the lights seemed to get larger.

Simple and insignificant lights seem to mark every part of my life.

Black and White dinner!

Blake and I dancing, so cute!











Me and the girls before the party!



Twylla and I sharing a moment.

Rob thinking that I'm Oprah?















Hey, I look good in red.


So my floor put together a formal black and white dinner for our brother floor. It was Awesome. It actually ended up being a dance party. It was sooo....much fun. Here are some pics from it. Oh, bye the way I actually wore a red dress, I just felt like it was an appropriate thing to do.

The Father's song, Matt Redman

I have heard so many songs
Listened to a thousand tongs
but there is one that sounds above them all
The Father's song the Father's love
you sung it over me and for
eternity its written on my heart

Heaven's perfect melody
the creators symphony
you are singing over me
the Father's song

Heaven's perfect mystery
the king of love has sent for me
and now your singing over me
the Father's song

I have heard so many songs
Listened to a thousand tongs
but there is one that sounds above them all

The Father's song the FAthers love
You sung it over me and for
eternity its written on my heart

Heaven's perfect melody
The creators symphony
You are singing over me
The Father's song

Heaven's mystery
The king of love has sent for me
Now your singing over me
The Father's song

the Father's song
The Father's love
you sung it over me and for
eternity it's written on my heart.

It's written on my heart
You sing it over me
Father,

The Shadows

I find myself in the shadows. Lurking around like a huntched back creature and wondering wether the light will ever expose itself.

The shadows seem to create discomfort in my sould but not enough to urge me to leave the darkness. I have the option to get out, but I just choose to continue to lurk. My back hurts and my senses are numb. I try to eat but the joy of taste has escaped my mouth. My eyes have been weakened because I know longer see the life behind the living. My hearing has faded, because it has been so long since I have heard the laughter of the healthy.

The buildings just seem to get bigger. They have overtaken the trees that dance. They have overtaken the natural land where we used to grow old and be merry. I lurk in the shadows of these giants.

I have walked and have no where to go so I will just sit. I will sit and wait. Wait for the abnormality of death to come and visit my sitting place. I sit and wait for the something that will save me from the shadows. I wait here for my death because I am a living corpse, walking around. I am a presence among the living but I can not figure out this life out.

I am called to live a life that represents the Life but I seem to walk around like the corpse that ends it all. The giants have swallowed my hope and have taken my "revolution" away. The dance that was once introduced to me has become a tiresome run from the hands that try and pull me down. The secret agenda's and the pull of the empty hole that has swallowed the growth of my trees.

I just want to see, To hear, To taste, To touch, To know, that as I sit here in my shadows that there is a light.

Mars Hill

When we were in the car K-dog pointed it out. It was a strip mall, nothing to fancy, but there was an excitment in the look of it. We ended up waiting in a line of cars to turn into the parking lot and as we walked up I saw two different signs. One for the YMCA and one for Party Zone.

The mini-mall signs were still up. We approached the door and it had church name and the service times displayed. It was the first sign I had seen in my first encounter with this body of Christ. We walked in and there was an older lady shaking hands and welcoming people. There was an awe in the atmosphere. There were hundreds of people milling around.

We walked in the "sanctuary" and there was a stage in the middle of the room. K-dog grabbed a piece of paper and a bible that was on mental cabinet on the wall. We sat down and the worship band got up on stage. They started playing hymns.

After the worship set Rob Bell got up and sat down in the middle of the stage on a cool swivel chair. He did some announcements and then he told us to open our Bible's to Luke chapter 10.

And then it happened.

The flipping of at least one thousand Bibles. It was a beautiful sound.

Rob Bell, isn't anything special. He walked his community through the contextual and historical meaning behind the text. It was nothing new. Rob Bell was communicating God's truth. That's it.

I walked out of the church confused. What just happened? Was that church?

The reason I say that is not because it was bad. It wasn't bad. The music was good the "message" was good. But it wasn't anything new. Here's what happened. Rob Bell listened to God. Not only did he listen to God he decided to follow him as well. He is an ordinary man doing extrodinary things. He decided to take the idea of faith and go on a walk with God.

He understands that and so does his community. They are the most outrageously giving community in the nation, and guess what? They don't take offereing during service!

They have joy boxes at every door, so as you exit the sanctuary you just drop off what you want. They not only just give to the church, but the church gives to everyone as a whole. They don't waste money on frivilous things but make an impact in their culture by using thier money in an eternal way.

Mars Hill is a body of believers who understand what the covenant is really about and are willing to risk their lives in God's redemption.